Sony started with the temporary restraining order yesterday, in which they ask for all information to be removed from the web (yeah, good luck with that). They also want the involved people's computers and possible storage media be impounded. This temporary restraining order wasn't an actual lawsuit, but Geohot decided to take his page offline nonetheless. Not that it matters - mirrors are popping up all overthe place already.

The official lawsuit came today, and it's a typical case of throwing a whole load of complaints against the wall, hoping at least one thing will stick. It's all in there - DMCA, US federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (and its state counterpart), contributory copyright infringement (because they aid others in breaking the PS3), and a few other things which aren't particularly strong arguments (like Playstation Network ToS violations and such).

"Working individually and in concert with one another, the defendants recently bypassed effective technological protection measures employed by Sony," the company states in the filing, "Through the internet, defendants are distributing software, tools and instructions that circumvent the [protection measures] and facilitate the counterfeiting of video games. Already, pirate video games are being packaged and distributed with these circumvention devices."

Geohot is not worried about the lawsuit. "I am a firm believer in digital rights," he told the BBC, "I would expect a company that prides itself on intellectual property to be well versed in the provisions of the law, so I am disappointed in Sony's current action. I have spoken with legal counsel and I feel comfortable that Sony's action against me doesn't have any basis."

Fail0verflow reiterates they do not condone piracy, and have never distributed any Sony code. "We have never condoned, supported, approved of or encouraged videogame piracy," their website read, "We have not published any encryption or signing keys. We have not published any Sony code, or code derived from Sony's code."

It will be interesting to see where this will go. Jailbreaking mobile phones has recently been added as a DMCA exemption in the US, and it could be that this will work in the hackers', favour. Common sense would have this case tossed out at the first go, but sadly, common sense is not something that generally prevails in the courts.